"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step" Lao Tzu
Saturday morning 7:15 am, we arrived at Lunds Central for coffee and a send off by our booster friends. It was so encouraging to receive such an enthusiastic send-off. Special thanks to Mark and Aaron for taking time for pictures. For today's ride I was joined by Mike and Loren (both accomplished European touring cyclists-they went to France several years ago and bicycled interesting parts of the country.)
Image on the right shows the rear bike tire dipped in the Mississippi River. This is tradition for any long distance bike tour.
Let's talk about the riding...beautiful sunshine, 84 degrees, but unfortunately one mega head wind coming out of the southwest gusting to 25 mph. Oh well, you can't have everything and remember, hot head winds are better than cold rain and 47 degrees.
As we approached our destination (a farm south of Gaylord) we were greeted by Lee and his daughter, Heather, who rode out in their jeep. Then, Spencer and Jon arrived in a 4 wheeler
and began taking photos of us as we faced the final two miles of incessant wind. Check out Jon's images at the link provided. He is a great photographer specializing in wildlife and landscape photography.
As we rode up the farm driveway we were surrounded by Lee and Sue's cheering friends.
What a wonderful experience. Everyone is eating dinner and I'm still typing this post.
It feels great to report that day 1 of 42 is in the record book. (We pedaled for 7-1/2 hours and registered 74 miles on the bike computer.)
74 miles......74 pictures from Jon ....Great start for this Trip!
More pictures from the morning take off! http://www.jonsmithers.com/dennis090107-cathy/
Some really fun pics here.... http://www.jonsmithers.com/dennis090107
Some really fun pics here.... http://www.jonsmithers.com/dennis090107
